35. Adrian
THIRTY-FIVE
ADRIAN
Movement behind me pulls me out of sleep. I’ve gone a few weeks now without any nightmares, and it’s like my body’s been trying to make up for lost time, because with Dylan wrapped around me, I sleep like the dead.
I open my eyes in the low light of the early morning. The floor of the life raft makes a whooshing noise when Dylan slides his butt over it.
I’m not sure what time it is, but based on the lack of sunshine and the chill in the air, it’s not even dawn yet.
“Where are you going?” I ask through a yawn.
Dylan snaps his head around and blinks at me in the dim firelight. “Gotta take a leak,” he says after a moment.
I push myself up on my elbows. “Can you walk?”
He rolls his eyes. “It’s been three days. Calm down.”
Well, that’s not happening.
“You’re supposed to rest your foot,” I say. “You can’t get dirt in that wound. It might get infected.”
“Sure. On the other hand, if I don’t go out right now, I’ll pee in here.”
I ignore the tone.
“Just call if you need any help.”
He doesn’t dignify that offer with a comment and disappears from view.
I lie back down and stare at the ceiling. Minutes tick by. He’s still not back.
After a few more minutes, I give up on my plan to go back to sleep and climb out of the raft. No sign of Dylan.
My brain immediately kicks into high gear with overthinking, so I force myself to take a few deep breaths.
I’m not going to freak out.
“Dylan?” I call.
Nothing.
I’m not going to freak out.
“Dylan?”
I’m going to freak out now. The tiny, logical part of my brain says I’m being an idiot.
What the hell do I think could’ve happened to him in…
fifteen minutes? Twenty? Logically speaking, nothing at all, but since my brain is geared to think Dylan’s going to die any minute now, I’m zeroing in on every possibility, from a shark attack to him falling into a sinkhole.
I look around with no idea what to do when I notice his footprints in the sand. I don’t bother with my shoes, I just start to walk.
I grumble the whole time I’m moving, not even sure why I’m so pissed right now or at whom.
It doesn’t take too long for the footsteps to disappear, because there’s a small grove of trees stretching almost all the way to the ocean. I push through the branches and see Dylan almost immediately.
He doesn’t see me, though.
I freeze in place, even though I know immediately that I should move away and give him his privacy.
He’s sitting down, back against the trunk of a palm tree. One leg is bent at the knee, the other stretched out on the sand. His shorts are open, and he’s stroking himself. Up and down. His head is tipped back, eyes closed.
I blink. Sex has been… I haven’t actually thought about sex in forever. Most of my brain has been occupied by pure panic for months now.
When was the last time I jerked off?
Dylan’s lips part, and he lets out a soft moan. A shiver runs down my back, and what the hell?
Dylan’s breathing quickens, his chest rising and falling faster and faster. Just like his hand. On his dick.
It’s not like I haven’t seen his dick before. We’ve gotten dressed and undressed in front of each other plenty of times. Not in the last few years, but before.
My chest feels hot.
I shouldn’t be here.
I take a step back and my foot lands on a branch.
Dylan’s back arches just as the branch snaps. His head turns, and his gaze lands straight on me.
Well, fuck , I think faintly.
Mostly, though, I seem to take the scene in in snapshots. Dylan’s flushed chest and wide silver eyes. His slightly parted lips. The slick wetness of his hand. The red tip of his dick.
I whirl around then.
“Sorry,” I say. “Sorry. I was… Sorry.”
And then I take off. Back to the raft and our camp.
I walk fast, my mind still whirling with images. It’s not a great look. I’m the official pervert of this island.
Dylan comes back a little later, and we nod at each other in awkward acknowledgment.
I watched you jerk off earlier.
Yup.
Cool.
Cool.
“I didn’t mean to walk in on you,” I say, because I’ve never really been one to let things fester, no matter how awkward they are.
Dylan avoids my gaze and starts moving random things around for no reason at all.
“It’s fine,” he says tightly.
“You can warn me next time.”
That suggestion makes him turn around and give me a long look. “Warn you that I’m about to go jerk off?”
“I’d say put a sock on the doorknob, but that doesn’t really work in our case.”
“Or I can hoist it up above the life raft like a flag,” he says dryly.
“The good ideas. They just keep coming.”
He makes a face at me, and I grin.
“I really am—” I start to say.
“Let’s not.”
I hold both my hands up in front of myself, and then we get on with the day.
But that night, I can’t fall asleep. And for a change, it’s not because I’m obsessing about the plane crash or the island or all the ways things could go wrong for us out here. Instead, I think about Dylan. All of him. On that beach.
It makes no sense.
And still, every time I close my eyes, Dylan’s there.
Sleep remains a distant memory that night.